


The Cats of Menaphos

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Category: Runescape
Genre: Gen, Menaphos, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 06:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11526885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: In the Golden City, a man may most definitely kill a cat, but he does so at his own risk. A bit of speculation on the cats who roam the twin cities.





	The Cats of Menaphos

In the city that straddles the wide, glittering Elid, only the cats pass freely from one half to the other. Unseen and unheard they sneak across the bridge, passing from the city of the living to the city of the dead, going as darkness falls and returning with the shining dawn.

The cats of Sophanem are tomb-cats and temple-cats, guardians of her crypts and shrines. They keep watch over the sealed doors and the sacrifices burning on the altars. They spy on priest and worshipper alike, nor do they shun the foetid smell of the embalmer’s workshop, or the ruins of long-raided catacombs.

The cats of Menaphos, on the other hand, are market-cats and harbour cats. They listen to the stories of sailors and ship-cats, the gossip of traders from all across the great desert, the whispered secrets of soldiers in the streets. The laments of beggars are as familiar to them as the laughter from a feast-house, and neither man nor god can keep a secret from them in all the Golden City.

They live in separate worlds, but are at liberty to pass over the border, and all answer to the mighty Sphinx, their ancient protector.

At each new moon as the night is darkest, they gather in an abandoned tomb in Sophanem to parley and plot. Nor is this council entirely concerned with their own, endless arguments and feuds, but with the eternal threat lurking beneath the desert sands. They know it and its terrible ways better than anyone, for they share a primordial and painful bond with it, a bond that ties them to the world of the dead.

Yes, the cats know the way through the night-black crypts, the winding way to mist-shrouded Noumenon. They know what stalks the shadows over the bridge, and they know the name of the thing that  commands them, and the language of the crows who shriek their warning cries to wayfaring souls.

...The cats, the cats of the Golden City, cast-away siblings of the great Amascut.


End file.
